November 27, 2002

BOTH JOHN POINDEXTER AND THE HOMELAND SECURITY DEPARTMENT are coming in for a shellacking from bloggers. Here’s what the Acidman says:

We DO NOT NEED THAT SHIT, folks. Granting such power to Washington will not make us more secure; it will make us more likely to be terrorized– NOT by terrorists, but by own own government. If you trust the IRS, the ATF, the FBI, the CIA and the goddam Post Office, you’ll LOVE this fucked-up idea. Put everybody under a government microscope and see how many terrorists are targeted.

They won’t have time to fight terrorism, because they’ll be going after low-hanging fruit, which is YOU and ME, people. The super-spy agency will be no different than gun-control nutballs. They’ll take guns from law-abiding citizens because that’s easy to do.

The criminals get to keep theirs. They can’t find the fucking criminals; criminals HIDE. So, the crime-fighters go after you. They know where you live.

Given the choice between worrying about a POSSIBLE terrorist attack on my life and a DEFINITE government attack on my privacy, I’ll take my chances with the terrorists every time. Terrorists aren’t that smart, they don’t have that much money, and they aren’t the government. They aren’t frightening.

The government is.

Meanwhile, Shellshocking writes: “Stay the FUCK out of my shopping cart!” And she joins Kim du Toit, who has been righteously ranting about the Poindexterbase for some time, in encouraging people to write their Senators and Representatives.

Overplaying the domestic-spy hand could be a big mistake for the Administration. And what idiot decided that Poindexter would be a good public face for this program? Or was it some ingenious maneuverer trying to kill the program who put Poindexter in charge? That would explain the creepy logo, too.

Meanwhile, outside the blogosphere, Randy Barnett (who has been mentioned as a potential Supreme Court nominee. . . .) has some advice for the Administration: “When libertarians do not trust Republican legislators to respect the Bill of Rights, they will be more likely to vote Libertarian,” which as we’ve read has been costing the GOP elections.